[MLB-WIRELESS] US unveils chip-zapping 'lightning bomb' to tackle Saddam

John Newbigin jn at it.swin.edu.au
Wed Jan 22 10:16:38 EST 2003


Michael_Florence at dlink.com.au wrote:
> 
> I am still waiting for them to invent the Flux Capacitor. Marty, 10.21
> Gigawatts!
You mean "... 1.21 Gigawatts!  How could I have been so careless?  The 
only thing that can generate that kind of power is a bolt of lightning..."

John.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Toliman <toliman at ihug.com.au> on 22/01/2003 02:34:00 AM
>                                                                                 
>                                                                                 
>                                                                                 
> 
> 
>                                                               
>                                                               
>                                                               
>  To:      melbwireless at wireless.org.au                        
>                                                               
>  cc:      (bcc: Michael Florence/Sales/DLINK-AUST)            
>                                                               
>                                                               
>                                                               
>  Subject: Re: [MLB-WIRELESS] US unveils chip-zapping          
>           'lightning bomb' to  tackle Saddam                  
>                                                               
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 10:19 PM 21/01/2003, Barry wrote:
> 
>>And I thought a microwave bomb was feeding rik a couple of large tins of
>>baked
>>beans. Oh well.
>>- Barry
>>
>>US unveils chip-zapping 'lightning bomb' to tackle Saddam
>>By John Leyden <mailto:john.leyden at theregister.co.uk>
>>Posted: 21/01/2003 at 10:26 GMT
>>Remember the neutron bomb, the radiation-rich atomic weapon of the 1980s
>>designed to kill people while leaving buildings intact?
>>
>>Well now we have a weapon suited for 21st century war - designed to fry
>>electronics while leaving people, mostly, unharmed. Allegedly.
>>
>>High-Power microwave bombs are "man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise
>>missiles", Time (somewhat breathlessly describing the bomb as potentially the
>>next "wonder weapon") reports
>><http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030127/nmicro.html>.
>>
>>More at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28942.html
> 
> 
> my fear with this kind of munition, is how close you want to be to the
> impact/blast zone when the EMP/HPM-P goes off. regular military built
> circuitry is unreliable in the field when it's been designed and
> battle-hardened by army-engineers, but if a tank, radio or a friendly
> platoon is in the blast zone, it might effect them, and not effect the
> equipment inside the concrete/steel mesh and toughened bunker defenses.
> 
> but it did remind me of "e-bombs".... from 6 months ago, a strange article
> popped up... which seemed familiar
> http://english.pravda.ru/world/2002/08/27/35356.html
> 
> I do know that the US Mil has some "wonder" weapons, such as the
> "soft-bombs" that can kill large turbines and switching relays they use in
> power plants, by flooding the air surrounding the interior with micro-thin
> pieces of graphite which create large amounts of static and disperse static
> fields, arcing transformers and relays, which can then burn out the
> turbines. its called a graphite-bomb, "soft-bomb", blackout-bomb or G-bomb.
> and... here's the specs.
> http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-114.htm
> 
> and this one....
> http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/9/e-bomb/
> 
> This extract from Popular Mechanics was intriguing, they even tell you how
> to build your own microwave bomb, with no intricate wiring or actual oven
> parts needed: A Poor Man's E-Bomb. What makes this one interesting is that
> it can be set like a firework...
> 
> "An FCG (Flux Compression Generator) is an astoundingly simple weapon. It
> consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger
> copper coil. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the
> coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The
> explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares
> outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short
> circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic
> field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Kopp. "The
> result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks
> before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest
> ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of
> millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like
> a flashbulb by comparison."
> 
> Toliman
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
> with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
> with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Information Technology Innovation Group
Swinburne University. Melbourne, Australia
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn


To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message



More information about the Melbwireless mailing list